The Public Legitimacy of Minority Claims: A Central/Eastern European perspective / Edition 1

by Plamen Makariev

Overview

Problems involving minorities still constitute a significant challenge for public policies in countries such as the ones on the territories of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Unassimilated, facing the cultural "non-transparency" of their lifeworlds, and usually without autonomy, their problems are quite different from those in Western Europe and North America.

This book presents a study of public policies concerning the national, ethnic, and religious minorities in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It explores the opportunities available for applying the model of deliberative democracy to the domain of designing and realizing minority policies. It examines the possibility that minority groups can influence – and ideally even pre-decide – minority policies by legitimizing claims concerning their needs and rights in a way that leaves democratic public opinion no choice but to support them. Adopting a novel approach to the public legitimization of minority claims, it proposes that the general public’s evaluation of the credibility of minority claims should focus on the procedural qualities of the intra-group (ethical-political) discourses through which these claims are articulated and substantiated.

This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of public policy, minority politics, the politics of Eastern Europe, political theory and comparative politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367173555
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/17/2019
Series:	Routledge Studies in Governance and Public Policy
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Plamen Makariev is Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, Sofia University, Bulgaria.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Why Communicative Empowerment of Minorities?

Overview

Methodology

Demographic Data about the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

Part I: Identities and Policies

1. Minority Identities

Minority

Identity and Culture

Whose Identity?

Identity: Essence or Construct?

Identity: an End, or a Means?

2. The Complexity of Minority Issues

Cultural Differences

Group Solidarity

Social and Political Factors

3. Political Power and Minority Policies

Socialist Internationalism

Consociational Democracy

The Politics of Presence

Identity Relations and Political Power

Part II: Identities and Communicative Power

Introduction II

4. Communicative Power

Public Legitimization within the Framework of the Habermasian Model of the Public Sphere

The Plurality of the Public Sphere

Genuine and Fictitious Legitimacy

5. Legitimacy and Public Deliberation

What Is "Public Deliberation"?

Differentia Specifica of Deliberative Decision-Making

The Unforced Force of the Better Argument

Procedure as a Safeguard against the Manipulation of Public Communication

6. The Internet as a Medium for Public Deliberation

How Does "Communicative Power" Work?

The Public Sphere and the Internet

Public Deliberation and the Internet

7. Is Intercultural Public Deliberation Possible?

The Challenges of Communication across Cultural Barriers

Solutions Proposed

8. The Communicative Empowerment of Minority Groups

Ethical-Political Discourses as Instances of Public Deliberation

Ethical-Political Discourses as Enclave Deliberations

The Dual Identity of Minority Group Members

Conclusion